The Holy Father’s tweets are, without fail, a drop of sunshine. They remind us of the love and mercy of our Precious Lord. I don’t know about you, but I can use all the love and mercy I can get.

Jesus is the unfailing source of love and mercy when everything in life has been upended. When everybody else has la la la-ad right past you and your problems, you can turn to Jesus. He will give you the grace you need to deal with what’s in front of you.

Do you know who Pope Francis is?

He’s the Vicar of Christ.

Pope Francis is the Jesus-follower-in-chief. He’s the shepherd we trust to lead us home to glory. At a time when the bishops are at odds with one another over such basic Christian teachings as marriage, and when the priests are pretty much ignoring the constant bashing ordinary Christians take for following Christ, we still have the Pope. Pope Francis is the lighthouse which warns us away from the rocks and keeps us in the safe channels.

I don’t know what Catholics in places like Germany, where the bishops are following one another instead of the Gospels, would do without the Pope. I don’t know who those Catholics who are burdened with trendy priests who teach the world’s wisdom instead of God’s would have for a teacher without the Pope.

Even if a person isn’t Catholic, Pope Francis is still a beacon of pastoral love and hope. He is God’s mercy and justice, personified.

Why then, do people feel compelled to drop vile tweets on his Twitter account?

It appears for all the world like a form of virtual exhibitionism, like the sickos who walk around elementary schools with their genitals hanging out. Or maybe it’s a social form of Tourette’s Syndrome in which people are compelled to shout out obscenities due to a mental tic. I’m not a psychologist, so I don’t know the medical/mental problem involved here.

Maybe it’s just another manifestation of the current zeitgeist in which Christians are the group it’s ok to hate. Perhaps the only mental problem at work is prejudice and hatred, taking form in a deliberate attempt to affront Catholics and degrade the Holy Father as an expression of the overall ethos of Christian bashing.

I think these sewage-dumping trolls are too numerous, and some of the things they tweet too sick, to be the work of adolescents on a dare.

The interesting thing is that the filthy darkness of these tweets tends to make the Holy Father’s goodness shine even brighter. His tweets of support for the suffering, assurance of God’s love, and hope for the salvation of all humankind cast a holy light that overcomes the darkness of this trash.

If you look at it that way, the whole business of sewage-dumping on the Pope becomes analogous to what we face as Christians living in post Christian world every day. The light of Christ is hope, mercy, love, eternal life. The darkness has no light. It only offers viciousness, degradation and anger. Even the jokes that come from people in its thrall are cruel.

Why do people feel compelled to throw sewage on the Pope? I think it’s because they are, without being aware of it, doing their master’s bidding. Who hates the Pope most of all? The one who would lead all the world away from Christ. Who are his disciples in this world? Those who aid him in achieving this desire.

I think that these attacks on the Pope are just another crude manifestation of the fact that we live in a fallen world and that we are, as St Paul told us, dealing with powers and dominions that we do not fully see and do not comprehend.

I’ve been saying for a long time that violent persecution of a group of people doesn’t just appear one day from out of nowhere. It grows from one stage of disregard and attack to another.

There is a continuum that leads to violent persecution. Hazing, bashing and societal acceptance of such are big steps down that road. Government attempts to limit the rights of specific groups and to use the law to harass them are a step even further down that road.

No matter what else President Obama does, he will always be the president who lied to Congress and then put the full prestige of the Presidency behind an ignominious attack on religious liberty.

America is far down the way on the continuum of persecution against Christians. We are subjected to this totally unnecessary fight with the government of the United States to protect our First Amendment rights. We are constantly bashed and reviled in the media and on Christian bashing hate blogs which seem to have no other purpose for their existence than to spit hatred toward Christianity and Christians into the blogosphere.

Any misdeed by any Christian anywhere is immediately labeled as a Christian crime and “typical” of every single one of the 2 billion Christians on this planet. Christians are labelled bigots for standing by 2,000 year old beliefs that were held universal just a decade ago.

Christian speakers, bloggers and teachers who continue to stand for traditional Christian teaching are hazed, attacked and buzz-bombed by the many Christian-bashing trolls on the internet. Nowhere is this more common than during discussions of persecution of Christians. Any discussion of Christian persecution immediately gets a large number of hateful comments and usually competing blog posts attacking the author personally. I believe that these attacks are meted out as punishment for having the temerity to write about the persecution of Christians.

The purpose of this is to silence any discussion of the behavior of those who are doing these things. They don’t want to be called out for what they are doing for the simple and obvious reason that fair-minded people might not tolerate such thuggery if they were forced to see it for what it is.

This article from American Thinker talks a bit about these things. I’ll put a bit of it below, but I think the whole article is worth reading.

As Msgr. Charles Pope and Johnette Benkovic point out, persecution of a hated segment of society begins gradually and accelerates stage by stage. Christians in America should recognize they are well into the first stages of persecution.

The first stage begins with attempts to stereotype the targeted group. Our current president summed up the Christian-hating left’s views of people of faith when in 2008, he categorized working-class voters in the following way: “[I]t’s not surprising, then, that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

For Obama, as well as for nearly all the left, people of faith are the inhibitors of “progress,” and they deserve being caricatured as Bible-thumpers, and therefore ignorant, uneducated, backward hicks and rednecks.

We live in an apostate world, and that apostasy is itself divided into groups.

The direct and honest apostate leaves the Church. He or she walks out and shuts the door.

What I call “the apostate in place” continues, for whatever bizarre reasons they might have, to attend mass, sing hymns, and pretend to be what they are not. They then metamorphose into a practical unbeliever when they step through the church doors and walk out. Since I’ve spent so many years in politics, I am well and truly acquainted with apostates in place.

Apostates in place leave the Church in their hearts, but due to a fundamental lack of honesty, continue to use their church affiliation for whatever it is they think they can get out of it. These phony baloneys are among the meanest and most spiteful people I know. They are also, odd to say, among the most self-righteous.

When I was in political office, I had the opportunity to see them in both places. I observed them at Church mixing with people who actually believed and tried to lived the Gospels. And I observed them with the Christian-bashing crowd where they liked to hang their political hats. It was a disturbing visage, watching them make fun of the same Church that had so kindly offered them a spiritual home, telling sarcastic and demeaning stories about the people who sat next to them in the pews.

Then, later, I’d see them back at Church again, quietly passing as what they were not.

I have to admit it: I detest these people. They irk me. I do not respect them. And I do my best to avoid their company.

The honest unbeliever who is acting without malice is a person I can respect. I can trust them, and in situations where our interests coincide, I happily work with them.

I understand how a person can get so crossways with a church or a parish or a priest that they just get up and walk out the door. I did something quite similar once upon a long time ago. That walkaway of mine launched me into what I call my anti-religion period; 17 years of denying Christ.

I understand the honest walkaways. But I can’t fathom those who hide in place. How can they stand the life they live?

If it was up to me, I’d wash my hands of them until and unless they got their minds right and started speaking truth. If I was God, I’d pass these phony baloney apostate-in-place Christians by and not give them a glance.

But I am not God. And we should all be glad of that. The real God does not take such a short and harsh-minded view of human weakness, including the phony baloneys who are doing their best to rip Him off.

Jesus tells us “bring to me the Souls of those who have separated themselves from My Church and immerse them in the ocean of My mercy.”

I think that He means those who have separated themselves in spirit from the Church, even while they are sitting in the pews as well as those who have walked out and slammed the door shut behind them. I have no doubt the those who are lying about their faith will be more difficult to convert that those who live in honest unbelief.

I also have no doubt that Jesus loves each one of them just as much as He loves me or you. He told St Faustina that while He was suffering and dying, these apostate souls tore at His heart. They added to His pain then, and they continue to inflict suffering on Him now.

Today’s prayer of the Divine Mercy Novena is for those who have, by their own volition, turned their backs on Christ and His Church. The time was that many people who walked away from the Church had reasons why they did it. A good number of them had been wounded by the Church in ways they could not bear.

That has changed now that Christian bashing and anti-Christian bigotry is the new fashion. Now most of those of leave the Church do it for superficial reasons of going along with the gang and adopting a popular pose.

Group hate-offs have become a kind of new community formation tool in our society. The fact that the communities that form around hatred in this way are a bunch of sick fools does not change this reality. In today’s climate the one group it is safe to hate without reservation is Christians. Just look at the Christian-bashing blogs on the internet and see what I mean.

You will see people trying to outdo one another in insulting Christianity and Christians. What you will not see is anyone calling them to task for being bigots and haters.

Today, when we pray the Divine Mercy Novena, Jesus has asked us to bring to Him the souls of those who have left His Church. He tells us that thinking of them added to the agonies of His passion.

But He does not ask us to discipline them or admonish them. He does not call down vengeance on them.

Jesus directs us to pray for them, to bring them and their sin-sickness to the ocean of His mercy and immerse them in the cleansing waters of eternal love.

Jesus’ Mercy is His final offering to us before the end times. It makes no difference whether the end of all time is imminent or far away. Our end time is always just around the next bend. In that moment when we step from life to death, in that last instance; even then, we can cry out to Him for mercy and receive it.

One of the people I talked about earlier in this post, a person who played Catholic at church and then made fun of Catholics and Catholicism when he was with his political cronies, died last week. He died without warning, in his sleep.

I have no idea what became of him at his passing. I only know that Christ’s mercy is so great that no sin we can commit can separate us from it. The only thing that can keep us from the Divine Mercy is us. We have to say no to avoid it.

Please pray the Divine Mercy Novena today. Pray for all the apostates you know. Pray that God will keep calling them until they turn back to Him. Then trust that He will do that.

Jesus asked us to bring to him the souls who have separated themselves from His Church.

I, for one, need to remember that the next time I get exasperated and want to walk on by these people and leave them to their dissolution. I have something I can do for them. I can bring them to Jesus and immerse them in the ocean of His Mercy.

In this way, I can heal myself, as well as them.

Fifth Day“Today bring to Me the Souls of those who have separated themselves from My Church*,

and immerse them in the ocean of My mercy. During My bitter Passion they tore at My Body and Heart, that is, My Church. As they return to unity with the Church My wounds heal and in this way they alleviate My Passion.”

Most Merciful Jesus, Goodness Itself, You do not refuse light to those who seek it of You. Receive into the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart the souls of those who have separated themselves from Your Church. Draw them by Your light into the unity of the Church, and do not let them escape from the abode of Your Most Compassionate Heart; but bring it about that they, too, come to glorify the generosity of Your mercy.

Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon the souls of those who have separated themselves from Your Son’s Church, who have squandered Your blessings and misused Your graces by obstinately persisting in their errors. Do not look upon their errors, but upon the love of Your own Son and upon His bitter Passion, which He underwent for their sake, since they, too, are enclosed in His Most Compassionate Heart. Bring it about that they also may glorify Your great mercy for endless ages. Amen.

*Our Lord’s original words here were “heretics and schismatics,” since He spoke to Saint Faustina within the context of her times. As of the Second Vatican Council, Church authorities have seen fit not to use those designations in accordance with the explanation given in the Council’s Decree on Ecumenism (n.3). Every pope since the Council has reaffirmed that usage. Saint Faustina herself, her heart always in harmony with the mind of the Church, most certainly would have agreed. When at one time, because of the decisions of her superiors and father confessor, she was not able to execute Our Lord’s inspirations and orders, she declared: “I will follow Your will insofar as You will permit me to do so through Your representative. O my Jesus ” I give priority to the voice of the Church over the voice with which You speak to me” (497). The Lord confirmed her action and praised her for it.

I am aware that there are Islamic teachings which lead to a more peaceful application of that faith. I think that the interpretation referenced here is an accurate depiction of of the application of Islamic teachings in 633-638 AD. It also seems that it is still relevant to Islamic extremists today.

I want to emphasize that this video discusses events which happened almost 1400 years ago. The reason I am posting it here is to correct the inaccurate history of the Crusades which is being used in the popular media to attack and degrade Christians and Christianity

A federal appeals court upheld a ban on renting public school facilities to religious organizations for religious services.

In my opinion this ruling is clearly discriminatory.

The reason I say it is discriminatory is that it is aimed at one group of people only. The city evidently allows rental of their school facilities to other groups for their private purposes. This ruling singles out religious groups and applies a prohibition to them that is not applied to other groups of people.

A federal appeals court has upheld a New York City policy prohibiting religious services in public school buildings, a decision critics said wrongly targets churches for exclusion.

Jordan Lorence, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, objected to the April 3 decision, saying that “the First Amendment prohibits New York City from singling out worship services and excluding them from empty school buildings.”

He noted that the buildings are “generally available to all individuals and community groups” for activity related to the community’s welfare. Groups that are religious should not be excluded.

Two of the three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overruled a lower court’s finding that the city’s education department’s policy wrongly restricted the free exercise of religion.

The two appellate judges said the policy seeks to avoid the risk of illegally endorsing a religion.

The dissenting judge noted that among the 50 largest school districts in the U.S., New York City is the only one to exclude religious worship from school facilities.

Small churches in poor neighborhoods have said they are particularly affected by the rule since they rely on the inexpensive space, The New York Times reports.

The Bronx Household of Faith, a small church that describes itself as “community-based,” filed a legal challenge to the rule.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, backed the policy and contended that religious congregations were “dominating” public schools each Sunday.

She said that when a school is “converted to a church in this way” it sends “a powerful message” that the government favors that church.

However, critics say that renting out space to religious groups with the same rules and standards as non-religious groups is in full adherence with the Constitution.

In the circular cobweb of bizarro accusations, obfuscations, dissimulations and dead flat lies that pass for commentary coming from Christian bashers, there is a surprising bottom line.

That bottom line has nothing to do with reason, rationality, right or moral/intellectual integrity. In fact, this particular bottom line is the opposite of those things. It is a claim by these people that they can do whatever they want, say whatever they want, and when they do, it is the fault of those they do it to and and say it about.

You may have encountered this line of reasoning in other parts of life. My most frequent encounter with it is among the perpetrators of violence against women. She asked for it, and Look what you made me do, are the commonplaces of excuse-giving among rapists and batterers.

It is, you see, the fault of those we are raping, battering, bashing that we do these things. We have no responsibility for our own tawdry behavior. The fault, dear horatio, lies in in the victim.

I see a lot of this bullying reasoning in the comments that show up here on Public Catholic. Every time I write something about (1) Christian persecution, (2) Christian bashing, (3) attempts to silence Christians and drive them from the public square, or (4) attempts to use government to coerce Christians to violate their beliefs, I know — know — that all I have to do is sit back and wait a few minutes before the abusive rebuts start pouring in.

Most of these abusive rebuts end up sleeping in the delete file. That leads to more abusive rebuts accusing me of all sorts of unsavory character and moral defects, which in turn, sleep in the delete file. This is followed by a good old fashioned thrashing of my intelligence (or lack thereof) morality, womanhood, professional standing and heritage on various Christian-bashing blogs.

Does any of this idiotic aggression prove that Christians are not subjected to bashing/hazing/attempts to silence them/persecution/and a newfound totalitarianism directed at their freedoms?

Nope.

On the contrary, this name-calling, attempted character assassination, bombast and bullying are all manifestations of precisely and exactly those things.

Aside from the predictability and profanity involved, the paucity of thinking that goes into the attacks from these people who claim that their thinking is “rational” is rather stark.

The lines of argument they use are usually a circular apologetic for two things: Use of government force to coerce Christians to violate their beliefs, and the attempts to drive Christians from the public square. The excuses for this are flat-liner simple.

Here’s how it works.

First, they say they don’t do it.

Gay marriage (as a for instance) will not affect anyone except people who are getting gay married.

If you don’t want an abortion, don’t have an abortion.

Etc.

When they are confronted with the uncomfortable facts that

People are being taken to court all over this country as well as other countries to force them to participate in gay marriages,

Christians have lost their jobs because of it,

Catholic adoption services and Catholic Charities’ ministries have been forced to close because they won’t refer for abortions or provide children for adoptions to same-sex couples,

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has been sued by the ACLU for teaching 2,000-year-old Catholic teachings,

Etc

They don’t back down.

Instead, they go on the attack. “You make us do it,” they claim in an eery echo of the batterer’s look what you made me do! Christians try to force their beliefs on others, the set-piece story goes, and thus they deserve to be pushed from the public square, called ugly names and hazed, both personally and by a deluge of anti-Christian rhetoric, television programming and other media attacks. As for me and my behavior, everything I do and say is justified because Christians are trying to force people to live by their morality.

This confabulated excuse for tawdry behavior ignores the plain fact that this Christian “force” they claim justifies any and all attacks on Christians and Christianity is the exercise of the same Constitutional rights that are available to all Americans.

They are trying to claim with a straight face that demonizing, hazing and constantly attacking a whole group of people is justified because those people (1) vote according to their own beliefs, (2) speak to their elected officials on behalf of their own beliefs, and (3) seek redress in the courts.

These activities are guaranteed rights of every American. You can find them in the First Amendment. They are, ironically, the same freedoms being used to advance the viewpoints these Christian bashers espouse. What these Christian bashers are objecting to is that all Americans, including Christians, have the same rights as they do. They are trying to use personal attacks, hazing and propaganda to batter Christians into acceding their rights as free Americans.

Raise this point, and the resulting cacophony of personal attacks would drown out a full orchestra playing the 1812 Overture.

The reason for these personal attacks are obvious. There is no just reason why Christians should be deprived of their freedom as American citizens to vote according to their beliefs, participate in the political process on behalf of those beliefs or seek redress through the courts. These are among the basic freedoms of American citizens, guaranteed by the First Amendment. The abusive yelling and screaming is a bullying attempt to avoid admitting that forcing Christians to forfeit their rights is, in fact, tyranny.

The interesting thing is that at the same time that Christian bashers are giving loud and verbally abusive explanations as to why the First Amendment does not apply to Christians, they are denying vociferously that they attack Christians unfairly.

When, as always happens on this blog, their abusive behavior nets them a zero, they move to cloying manipulation. The comments shift to feigned civility and syrupy compliments, based on the totally wrong assumption that nobody has ever tried to flatter or manipulate their way past me before.

There is an element of echo-chamber thinking in these attacks. Going back to the virtual clubhouse and counting coup, then trying to outdo one another in how they insult Christians seems to convince Christian bashers that people of faith really are as stupid as they tell each other. I don’t have any other explanation for the sudden turn to obviously manipulative niceness by the same people who’ve been calling me everything but a nice person otherwise.

We don’t do it, they tell us at the outset.

You make us do it, they reply to direct citations of their behavior.

It’s our right to do it, they say when you shut them down and refuse to give them a platform to attack Christians at will.

But we don’t do it, they circle back and proclaim, after their personal attacks don’t bully you into doing what they are demanding.

This is standard stuff in the Christian-bashing blogosphere. I’m writing about it here so that Public Catholic readers will understand it and not be overawed by it.

The first time a jerk throws a pie in your face, it will leave you stunned and speechless. But when the jerks just keep throwing those pies, you’ve got to learn how to stand up for yourself.

I love the commenters here on Public Catholic. You are an intelligent and thoughtful group of people. It touches, educates and amazes me to read the things you say and the honesty with which you say them.

However, every so often you get into a hairball of an argument and all I can see from the outside is a giant wroth of confusion with waving arms and a few feet sticking out.

The question in the title of this post is the result of one such hairball/wroth in the making.

It is an internet adage that if a combox conversation goes on long enough, somebody is going to call somebody else Hitler. I don’t think that people are referring to the failed Austrian painter, Iron Cross wearing, vegetarian occultist who caused the worst war in human history and masterminded the extermination much of Europe’s population of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, Catholic clergy, liberals, mentally ill, mentally challenged, disabled and various what not (deep breath) when they say this.

I’m not sure that Hitler, whose resume reads like half new-ager and half serial killer with one of the most advanced societies in history at his disposal, rises (or falls, as it may be) to the level that we give him.

First all, Hitler wasn’t and isn’t an evil god. He wasn’t and isn’t a demon from hell. Hitler was evil. But he was not Evil. Hitler was a man. He was killed by a bullet to the brain.

Hitler, by himself, could never have been more than a lone serial killer, knocking off individual people in the alleys and by-ways. Hitler, alone, was just another John Wayne Gacy wannabe.

What made him different was the confluence of the rise of nihilist philosophies and movements such as eugenics, a first World War that no one anywhere can explain, the fall of Russia into Communist hands, an unjust and vindictive peace that heaped all the blame and crippling punishment on Germany, and a worldwide economic depression that sucked the hope out of ordinary people all over the globe.

This welter of confusion and rage left people ready to listen to anybody who could give voice to their emotions and who sounded like he knew what he was doing. Germany had fallen into the hands of an ineffective government after World War I. The people were suffering on many levels. It was an easy and obvious march for a vegetarian, occult-following serial killer with a gift for driving oratory and a willingness to lie to take charge.

Hitler didn’t begin by telling the German people that he was going to kill everybody except the ones he deemed worthy of life. He certainly didn’t tell them that he was going to start a world war on three fronts. He told them that he was for peace and prosperity. He made up obfuscations and propaganda about how doing away with those who were, in his movement’s words, “useless eaters,” “life unworthy of life” was a kindness; a means of putting them and society both at the same time out of their respective miseries.

Hitler lied to the German people about his intentions and appealed to their baser instincts about other human beings, and, for their part, the German people colluded with him in committing crimes that were, before then, beyond imagining. By his lies and obfuscations, he was able to conjure a political spell that beguiled an advanced and Christian nation into following him down to the mouth of hell.

That’s how he killed the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, Catholic clergy, liberals, mentally ill, mentally challenged, disabled and various what not.

He lied to a lot of people and got them to give him a lot of power. Then, when he got the power, he repudiated the hated peace agreement and put Germany on a war-time economy, which in turn brought jobs and prosperity. He also used his power to consign those who opposed him to camps. Prosperity and the snuffed out silence of fear bought him the power to do his worst.

Most people in our modern America are too uneducated about history to know how Hitler really functioned or who he really was. All we know is what we see on tv, and what we see on tv is, at best, edited for ratings and, at worst, edited for propaganda purposes. Still, there remains the conviction that Hitler is the last great evil-doer that we can safely conclude in this relativistic and intellectually stifled world we inhabit was in factan evil-doer and not just the misunderstood product of a bad upbringing.

Hitler, because he is dead, and because he has become for us a safe repository for our cultural moral indignations, is the bogey man we drag out when we want to chide one another for our excesses. The “Nazis,” which is a sort of group code-name for Hitlerian cruelties and excesses, is has become a working synonym for Hitler himself.

Regarded this way, calling someone Hitler, or likening a group of people to the Nazis in an internet combox is the verbal equivalent of kids yelling “Oh yeah? Sez you!” at one another on the playground. It’s right up there with the slurs about their mothers that opposing teams in football games hurl at one another before the play starts.

Just for the record, let me state categorically that gay rights activists are not Nazis.

By the same token, people who believe in the sanctity of marriage are not “haters” or “homophobes.”

I will also add in defense of a combox slur that was directed at me, that opposing the farming of women’s bodies for eggs and also opposing the use of women as for-hire pregnancy surrogates does not mean that a person “hates gays.”

There is, to be sure, an ugly totalitarian thread running through the new next step that comes after redefinition of marriage wherever that event has occurred. It is the trammeling of the rights of conscience and religious freedom of churches, individuals and small businesses by using government force to coerce them into complying with a whole host of activities that violate their deeply held beliefs. This totalitarianism is supported by a bogus application of the principles of the Civil Rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. That is, in turn, supported by an equally bogus equating of sexual preference with race and the discriminations homosexuals have faced with the slavery and Jim Crow sufferings of black people.

We can talk about these things. We have talked about them over and over again on this blog.

But we can talk about them without calling each other Nazis, Hitler, haters, homophobes or any of the other verbal claptrap that blocks out reason and bastardizes our mental capacities. We can do it because we are — all of us — better than that.

There is not one person who comes to comment on this blog who lacks the capacity for rational thought and intelligent argument. They just need to learn to employ those capacities.

Feel free to discuss things on this blog. But use your higher thinking capacities when you do it. That way, you’ll walk away from the experience a bit better for it and will not degrade either yourself, your beliefs, or the many readers who come here.

The Little Sisters of the Poor, the stand up nuns who’ve taken on the Obama administration over the HHS Mandate, are a bunch of tough customers.

I mean that in the best understanding of the word “tough.” Providing frail elderly people with loving care on a 24/7 basis is work that would make the average Navy Seal turn weak in the knees.

When I say 24/7, I mean twenty-four hours, right around the clock; every single day, right around the calendar. Caring for a frail elderly person is more demanding in a lot of ways than caring for a toddler. They are both sweet, precious and strong-minded. The differences are that the toddler isn’t always trying to die on you, and they don’t have a memory of having once been a strong, independent adult.

The Little Sisters of the Poor do God’s work here on earth by providing care for people who are at the end of their earthly journey. The last phases of life are not a waste, and they are not a bother. Elderly people are beautiful, wonderful gifts to all of us. The fact that they require a bit more of us than our me-ism allows only makes them more precious.

The closest anyone will ever be to God in this life is not while sitting in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, but when they are sitting on the bathroom floor at 3 am, holding a croupy baby while the shower runs, or when they are changing the sheets on the bed of their incontinent elderly parent. Jesus is standing right beside you when you do these things, because when you do them for the least of these, you are truly doing them for Him.

This work of caring for those who can’t care for themselves is the life’s work of the Little Sisters of the Poor. They have given their lives to caring for Christ in the disguise of our frail elderly.

It’s no surprise to me that someone like this would become such a thorn in the side of the mighty and powerful United States Department of Justice. It’s also no surprise that those who want to force these sisters to accede to the will of a galloping secularism that seeks to mow down religious expression in public places in these United States should find the Little Sisters so problematic.

How do you turn public opinion against a bunch of nuns who have given their lives to care of the frail elderly?

The usual method in cases like this, where the problem persons are just too good to attack directly, is to redirect your venom by choosing an easier target. You might, say, go at a Catholic Supreme Court justice and that mean old Catholic Church and, of course, everyone’s favorite bugaboo, the Catholic bishops.

The trick is to make the fight about something other than those sweet little nun ladies with their bedpans and rosaries. Shift the focus and make the fight about the big, bad Catholic Church and you can count on the Pavlovian Catholic haters lining up on your side of the argument.

But the fact is, the argument is precisely about the Little Sisters of the Poor, along with their bed pans and rosaries. It’s about every Christian everywhere who wants to exercise their right as free Americans to practice their faith without government interference.

As much as its proponents try to twist and turn it, the HHS Mandate is a direct attack on the Constitutional protection of the free exercise of religion of American citizens.

The HHS Mandate is a regulation, promulgated by an appointed committee and signed by the president. It has the force of law, but it is not a law. It is a star-chamber bit of special interest government bullying that seeks to make an end run around the First Amendment of the Constitution. It is a vile piece of work that directly contradicts the guarantees in the Affordable Health Care Act, which is the legal authority by which the HHS Mandate was created.

Did that last bit go in a confusing circle? There’s no surprise in that, since it is circular. Congress passed the Affordable Health Care Act, which contained guarantees of religious exemption. The act also gave regulatory powers to the Department of Health and Human Services. Then (deep breath) …

… HHS created a committee to draft these regulations, and this unelected committee of representatives of special interests wrote the HHS Mandate which goes against the specific language in the law guaranteeing religious exemptions that gives the committee its power to promulgate the regulation in the first place.

Now. Is that clear as mud? The truth is, if the whole thing seems circular, it’s because it really does go in circles. But, to add to the confusion, this circle, unlike every other circle, has a starting point.

The HHS Mandate directly contradicts the president’s own executive order guaranteeing religious exemption as part of the enforcement of the Affordable Health Care Act. The fact that the president signed the HHS Mandate and has staked his presidency on it, means that he lied when he issued that executive order, in the promises he gave Congressman Bart Stupak and to the American people.

Enter, the living saints, the Little Sisters of the Poor and their tough-as-nails insistence on their Constitutional rights as American citizens.

What to do with a bunch of nuns who take care of sick old people?

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see attacks on the nuns themselves sooner or later. That would be the usual behavior track. But for now, the administration apologists are confining themselves to attacking the Church.

In the meantime the Little Sisters continue to do God’s work in many places, including, here, here and here.

For information about the on-going debate on this topic at US News and World Report, check out Frank Weathers.

But let me repeat myself. Deacon Greg Kandra, journalist, Deacon and Catholic Patheosi extraordinaire, is my hero. I wish I could write headlines like the Deacon writes them. I wish I had a nose for news like the Deacon’s got. I wish … well you get the idea.

When Deacon Greg Kandra gets enough, you know that anybody else would be froth. The Deacon got enough when he read an over-the-top Catholic/Christian bashing opinion piece in US News and World Report.

The topic of the opinion piece? Why, it’s the Little Sisters of Charity and their “outrageous” appeal to the courts that they be allowed to follow the teachings of their Catholic faith. You know, that First Amendment stuff about the government not interfering with the free exercise of faith.

In case you don’t know about that part of the First Amendment, here is the whole thing for your consideration, emphasis mine:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Isn’t that beautiful? I mean, aren’t those words in that magnificent document beautiful?

Think for a moment about the self-proclaimed Constitution worshippers who want to shear the first clause from the second and use it as a club to beat religious people into silence. Can you imagine any of the Constitutional-rights-for-me-but-not-for-thee crowd actually writing a law like the First Amendment?

US News and World Report, by publishing a Catholic-bashing hate piece posing as an opinion piece, has jumped on the bandwagon of hating on Christians and publicly hazing them. The subject of this particular piece was those pesky nuns with their bigoted religiosity and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. It was all about Catholics and Catholicism and how we are out of line for not letting the government tell us to stop practicing our faith.

Despite the fact that the faith in this particular frying pan was Catholic, the same treatment extends to every traditional Christian. Make no mistake about it my brothers and sisters in Christ, it was about all of us.

Deacon Greg took it on in his typically measured, fair and well-founded manner. Frank Weathers followed with a hilarious segue into Chuck Norris (an Oklahoma boy, I might remind you,) while The Anchoress gives a brilliant survey of the power politics and faux feminism involved, while Tod Worner compared the Little Sisters with St Thomas More and Joanne McPortland took a turn at bat, providing us with absolutely delicious Joanne irony. The Catholic Patheosi have got this handled.

I don’t have much to add that I haven’t already said a hundred times. We are not the aggressors here. The government is trying to force religious people, in this case, a group of nuns to violate the teachings of their faith. The fact that this commenter thinks that allowing nuns to forego violating their faith undermines the rights of all women doesn’t even begin to make it so.

When someone stoops to this kind of bigoted name-calling to defend their position, it is usually either because they are too stupid to defend their position intelligently or because the position itself is indefensible. I would guess that in the case of this commenter, the reasons she is resorting to this tactic are that her position is indefensible by reasoned argument, and also that bigotry against Christians, particularly Catholics, is so widespread in certain circles that she thinks an appeal to it will win unmerited support for her ideas.

The bottom line for those of us out here in the audience is this: If you are a Christian, you need to stand up for Jesus.

Don’t be a jerk about it. By that I mean keep your language clean, don’t name-call or attack any person. Do not try to use satan’s weapons to fight satan.

Just stand up strong for Jesus Christ and the right of Christians to be Christian without being attacked, reviled, slandered or bullied in our society. Make your case as the son or daughter of the living God.

Et tu, Justice Sonia Sotomayor? Really, we can’t trust you on women’s health and human rights? The lady from the Bronx just dropped the ball on American women and girls as surely as she did the sparkling ball at midnight on New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Or maybe she’s just a good Catholic girl.

The Supreme Court is now best understood as the Extreme Court. One big reason why is that six out of nine Justices are Catholic. Let’s be forthright about that. (The other three are Jewish.) Sotomayor, appointed by President Obama, is a Catholic who put her religion ahead of her jurisprudence. What a surprise, but that is no small thing.

In a stay order applying to an appeal by a Colorado nunnery, the Little Sisters of the Poor, Justice Sotomayor undermined the new Affordable Care Act’s sensible policy on contraception. She blocked the most simple of rules – lenient rules – that required the Little Sisters to affirm their religious beliefs against making contraception available to its members. They objected to filling out a one-page form. What could be easier than nuns claiming they don’t believe in contraception?

Sotomayor’s blow brings us to confront an uncomfortable reality. More than WASPS, Methodists, Jews, Quakers or Baptists, Catholics often try to impose their beliefs on you, me, public discourse and institutions. Especially if “you” are female. This is not true of all Catholics – just look at House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. But right now, the climate is so cold when it comes to defending our settled legal ground that Sotomayor’s stay is tantamount to selling out the sisterhood. And sisterhood is not as powerful as it used to be, ladies.

Catholics in high places of power have the most trouble, I’ve noticed, practicing the separation of church and state. The pugnacious Catholic Justice, Antonin Scalia, is the most aggressive offender on the Court, but not the only one. Of course, we can’t know for sure what Sotomayor was thinking, but it seems she has joined the ranks of the five Republican Catholic men on the John Roberts Court in showing a clear religious bias when it comes to women’s rights and liberties. We can no longer be silent about this. Thomas Jefferson, the principal champion of the separation between state and church, was thinking particularly of pernicious Rome in his writings. He deeply distrusted the narrowness of Vatican hegemony.

The seemingly innocent Little Sisters likely were likely not acting alone in their trouble-making. Their big brothers, the meddlesome American Roman Catholic Archbishops are bound to be involved. They seek and wield tremendous power and influence in the political sphere. Big city mayors know their penchant for control all too well. Their principal target for years on end has been squelching women and girls – even when they should have focused on their own men and boys.

Representative Rebecca Hamilton, 18-year member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives talks about life as a Public Catholic. Read her Bio Here

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I want Public Catholic to be a welcoming place. As my mother would say, be polite. What that means is use courtesy and civility. It also means do not attempt to hijack the board with your personal agendas. Public Catholic is a Catholic, Christian blog. I created it to empower Christians to stand for Jesus in today's world. Repetitive, harassing attacks against the faith, Jesus or the Church are not welcome here. Address others with respect and refer to public figures in the same way. No name calling. No cursing. No hitting. No spitting.